Owls hit by JJ blow

Paul Thompson
Sheffield Wednesday

GARY Megson has confirmed that Jermaine Johnson will miss the start of the season - and the Owls boss has blasted a leak that made the news public.

The winger, who has been the team’s main attacking threat in friendlies, has cartilage damage and is ruled out of Saturday’s opener against Rochdale.

A post on a fans internet forum claimed yesterday that JJ had picked up an injury and could be out for a month. Megson had not been planning to alert Rochdale that Johnson was definitely out but he has now had to admit to the “massive blow” of losing him.

The Owls manager did not confirm that the absence is likely to last a month.

But it would not be unusual for a cartilage problem to take that long.

Megson said: “We took him off at half-time last Saturday and thought it was nothing much.

“Unfortunately, a scan has shown some cartilage damage, but it’s not as bad as it could have been.

“We’ve got somebody at the training ground who, either in person or via somebody else, has regularly delivered information to this website about injuries or our targets, perhaps after overhearing or reading stuff, and has got things right.

“If it’s an employee, they will be dealt with and if fans do this sort of thing it does the club and the rest of the fans a disservice by alerting other teams.

“The only ones who will benefit from this JJ leak are Rochdale. And it doesn’t make our job any easier,

“Losing him is a massive blow. Somebody else has to come in.

“We haven’t got another player like JJ but we have others who have their own strengths.”